The invention relates to granular material testing structure and methods and refers more specifically to automatic structure for determining the compactability of a sample of foundry sand.
A number of devices which compress a sample of sand or soil to test the sample's physical properties are known. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,810,289 (Button), U.S. Pat. No. 2,703,492 (Brissette, et al), U.S. Pat. No. 2,448,964 (Dietert) and U.S. Pat. No. 2,373,026 (Guyer, et al). None of these, however, are automatic to any significant degree. U.S. Pat. No. 3,638,478 (Dietert, et al) discloses a structure which automatically performs a series of tests on a sample of sand contained in a fixed sample cylinder. The structure disclosed therein is complex and contains no means for emptying and cleaning the various parts thereof.